It has been five-and-a-half years since Laura Kent has spoken a word to her son Zack.

Her voice is one of the sounds that triggers the 20-year-old’s misophonia, a neurologically based disorder that elicits physiological and emotional reactions to specific sounds, and sometimes visual stimuli.

To help raise awareness for the rare disorder, Kent, her husband, Ryan, and Zack, starred in “Quiet Please …,” a documentary that explores the current state of misophonia research and the emotional toll it has on those with it and their loved ones. Kent, 51, who grew up in Mill Valley and lives with her family in San Rafael, is also one of the documentary’s producers.

A screening of the documentary is at 4 p.m. Sunday in San Rafael. To attend, email thekentfamily@comcast.net to RSVP.

Q How did this all begin?

A It started just with chewing sounds when he was about 12, and we couldn’t eat at the dinner table with him. We thought it was just behavioral at first, and then we realized it was a lot more than that. I typed in “hate sound” onto the internet and it brought me to a link to a “20/20” video (on misophonia). Zack and I watched it together and we both knew, that’s what he had. The end of sophomore year (of high school) is when it started to really progress.

Q How do you two communicate?

A Text and Facebook message, that’s unfortunately how we communicate. If you told me that this was going to be our lives, I would have never in a million years believed that I wasn’t going to be able to talk to my son. How could that possibly be? I feel like we’re all grieving the loss and it’s the loss of normal life, the loss of the normal family life, the loss of him enjoying life the way he should.

Q How did you get involved in the documentary?

A I joined many Facebook support groups and I got an email one day from the group, “How would you feel if we did a documentary about misophonia? Is anybody interested?” I wrote back, “That sounds like an amazing idea. We have to spread awareness.” I encouraged [director Jeffrey Scott Gould] to make the film. Zack, being a teenager at the time, said, “Absolutely not. I don’t want anybody to know about this.” Jeff and I stayed in touch, and one day, a Facebook post came up from Zack and he said, “I am not going to hide this anymore, I have this condition called misophonia, and this is how it has affected my life.” I called Jeff and I said, “Send him a message, ask him if he’ll be in it and I’ll fly you out here.”

Q What was it like to be in the documentary?

A I was happy to tell the story. Not only was it amazing to share with Jeff, but I met everybody in the documentary. I’m probably in about a dozen different misophonia support groups.

Q What do you want people to get from it?

A People need to understand that some disabilities are invisible. You don’t know what somebody’s dealing with.